A Walk in the Woods

I like waterfalls. I realize I may have lost half my readers on that stellar line, but really, I will gladly fall within the estimated 26 M people who visit waterfalls around the world every year. As kids, we would often go to Niagara Falls when visiting my cousins in Canada. They distinctly excluded themselves from falling within that statistic. I remember my cousin turning the kitchen tap on full and telling me to watch that instead. After a couple of glasses of wine, I could probably theorize for quite some time as to why I find droplets of water crashing together and rushing in mad unison over a cliff fascinating. I also realize that is probably why more often than not I am elected the DD!

Anyway, Tings first visit to Niagara was around 9 months old.

I struck a pose identical to that of one of my dad and I as a toddler. I also seem to be modelinga haircut reminiscent to his in the 70's!

Obviously, Tingu didn’t comprehend much at that point but I did think he would get it now. So with my mom’s desire to see the Autumn colors (we were a bit too early) and my love of waterfalls (I feel like I am back in 7^th grade & yes, I did have the waterfall trapper keeper), we headed to the lowermost portion of the Appalachian Trail.

The Blue Ridge Mountains

I remember walking these familiar trails with my parents every Autumn. For so long, I wanted to live anywhere but Georgia, but now it’s very comforting to know my kids will have this bond to things and places in my own life. It is a very odd concept to think that my very international family is raising second-generation Georgians.

As we headed further north, I began thinking it looks kind of cosmopolitan up here. Ok, so, perhaps that a little too strong of a word but there were restaurants like Blue Bicycle advertised and enough upscale homes and shopping that the folks characterized in Deliverance were far, far from mind!

This gentleman and my father discussed at lenth the evolution of 'bikers' into your neighborhood 'Nice Guy'.

As we reached our destination, the kids and their Nani and Nana headed off, disregarding all signs....

Love the dog...!

"It's a dog, it's a plane, it's ..." 

 Tings and Hunie actually walked most of the way down, until reaching the lower edge of Amicalola Falls.

This is when Huns just sat down on the middle of the trail and refused to move.


This is also when I was handed the cars keys and told to hike back up the 400+ steps and bring the car around. Nothing like hiking the Appalachian trail with a coolie…

Form follows function

A few years ago, I had an interior decorator come to our house. She asked me to walk her though the space describing one piece in each room that resonated with B & I. I walked her from room to room but there was not one single thing in any room that I could say really reflected our style. This was rather disheartening. We used to have a fairly well put together loft downtown and loved to entertain. This new house did not get the same treatment. Our sleek loft stuff did not fit this house in the suburbs and much of it was relegated to the basement boxes. Lack of priority on this matter spawned a weird hodgepodge of furnishings that range from Castiglioni chairs to stuff that just sort of sprouted up based more on function than on aesthetic form.

I like modern furnishing and abstract art; Victoria Hagan (not for Target!), Page McLaughlin – these inspire me. B prefers a more ‘old world’ type of look and the kids, well, primary colors, gigantium pieces, and a random spattering of toys seem to be all the rage. We tried to get other interior decorators to help merge these visions but not surprisingly the holy triumvate of style, function and cost did not appear and 4 years later our house looks pretty much the same as when we moved in!

Pottery Barn Kids seems to be able to make it all work but my rooms never look like that – I bought those little bins that look so clever in the magazine…here is the reincarnation at my house:

The foyer – This space was inspired by Silver Spoons!!


B’s office was transformed into a playroom, in the hopes of containing some toys. A rather hilarious concept, given that they even end up in my shower:

I bought some frames, thinking I would paint pictures, to place in them. The oil paints have not been whipped out in 10 months, but the frames are awaiting their future:


What is funnier is that I actually hung them up – they are exactly the same picture, just different scale!

Giving up hopes on finding time to furniture shop, we had furniture made. However even that required some effort to make it homey. The built in shelves were left empty for weeks, finally our lovely housekeeper went around the house and just filled the shelves with stuff she found. In the old days, this would have completely irked me; today it provided a basis to work from!


I’ve also had empty picture frames just on display…

The kitchen island centerpiece. I'll let the picture speak for itself. A couple of points should be awarded for the fact that  I do attempt to swap out fruit bowls once in a while...

I am not sure when this happened! I love having a great space to call home and don't mind the modest effort to make it such, but I guess my modest is what is above! Though I am not completely comfortable with it, my hodge-podge is just what seems to work right now and most importantly my discerning clientèle seem to approve so far.

Tings getting a feel for the materials before providing his visual appraisal.

Huns somehow got himself in the hamper the right way around, just can't figure out how to get away from the stinky clothes fast enough

I had previously ended this post with bold proclamations of redesign. I'm scaling back to just say, I'll try a little harder.

Summer's Not Done With Us

After our absolutely delicious, gluttonously full summer we had planned a couple of quiet weekends to leisurely reacquaint ourselves with the new season. I wanted time to just lounge around in bed with the boys as clear, distant autumn sunlight streamed in through the windows and crisp, early morning winds wafted around the room. Those lovely weekend morning when the stars align and the kids allow 10 extra minutes to cuddle and I drift in and out of consciousness just enough to be able to distinguish wanting a strong coffee but not needing one - as there is no where to be and nothing pressing to do (to baseline - this has happened maybe twice in 2 years!).

I wanted to have quiet time to enjoy the forests of rainbow leaves framed in my windows and I wanted to want rich butternut squash soup. And while autumn peeps in for a quick hello and kiss goodnight, summer, dear summer just isn't done with us. 

We go through the patterns of pretending the fall season is upon us: planting chrysanthemums in gold, burgundy and orange colors, hanging wreaths on the doors and pulling out our warmer clothes & making piles of summer things to donate! Thus it kind of looks like Fall but feels like Summer, so in the spirit of looking like one thing and feeling like another we pretended to wash cars when really we just played around in the water. Our neighbors found it highly amusing that we all splashed around with our professional-looking tools for 15 minutes before remembering why we love having our cars cleaned!

The boys opted out of hard labor quickly and instead just gave their father the quizzical looks above for attempting to rival Mr Clean's 4 Minute Deluxe Car Wash.

We went on fall-ish adventures in sweltering heat with some of Tingu's BFFs:

My mom has too deeply ingrained the starving children of the world mentality in me to ever feel good about playing in food, but it was funny to watch the guys decide that 'doing the hokey-pokey' is the best way to get the corn kernels out of their pants!

I never would have guessed I'd love rural America as much as I do! I just wish I would have thought to buy some tomatoes from that place! I've been craving them ever since I read this post. Which I found after craving some more delicious pate de fruit that I got re-addicted to after visiting Auberge du Soleil.

Anyway, before my mind drifts off into a history of decadent summer meals, I'll refocus on my free-range kids running through a corn maize. I am getting hungrier as I type.

 

We bought some of these big 'ol pumpkins - perhaps some pumpkin bread is in my future...

A man after my own heart...

Ok, on that note, I'm going to go eat something wintery and good, even if it is 80 degrees outside! Perhaps there is a market for pumpkin ice cream?!

The End of Summer

We thought we would conclude summer on a high note with one last trip to the beach with my in-laws. So, given the advent of October and all things fall plus the inclement Florida weather we literally and metaphorically soaked up every minute of sunshine!

Tingu enjoyed showing his grandparents around his town which after just a weekend away was luxuriously familiar.

The one on the right is B, no left, no..right - yup, that's my hubby. I am sure of it!

The water was wild and lush and just felt so darn good.

Tings and Hunie lost a little red train off the condo balcony. Before we had time to figure out what happened, our little three year old explorer donned his backpack,slipped his flips-flops on the wrong feet and  ran down the stairwell in his Christmas pajamas yelling that he would 'return to safety' after he rescued Hunie's train. Huns, in the meantime, was just running back and forth on the landing shouting...oh, wait, that is what he is usually doing!

Ecstatic from finding the train after it's perilous four story fall into a palm tree planter.

The safari obsession lives strong as Tingu's African animals venture into new lands.

 Sir Hunie took to the pool ready for an epic joust :

The strategies were complex and the stakes high - pitting brother against brother and father against son.

B, now almost fully Americanized, brings us back to the 21st century - demonstrating rodeo moves on an inflatable, miniature horse. That's my man!

The horses were rather feisty and their subsequent taming resulted in a leg that had to be later amputated ...

Sandcrabs (and the bigger versions) were caught, investing/cashing-in on gold was hotly debated, and board games ended in the usual debacle (Gigi, for 42 points, please verify that 'Elfwyn' is a word in Welsh). Ms. Polly and her sick, sick dolly are forever engraved into our memories and plans were made to continue the lovely madness in December. Look forward to seeing you guys on your side of the pond very soon!